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The very first night after they’re rescued, Nat sneaks into Lottie’s room and asks her what she meant when she said, what home do you have to go back to?
Granted, Nat hadn’t expected an answer. Content to watch Lottie sleeping more peacefully than any of them ever did in the past nineteen months.
It’s probably the morphines.
“How long have you been watching me?” Nat asks, her voice about as loud as the beep of Lottie’s vitals monitor. “For years, I thought no one saw me. I thought no one cared enough to look. And you were there all along, you just didn't say anything.”
Things had changed after the last hunt, namely that they were rescued shortly after.
Nat’s memories are blurry from this point onwards, only the weight of Ben, Mari, the frog scientist and the guide in her stomach, but they're alive, they're out, and that's all that matters.
Lottie hadn't thought of it that way.
Lottie had wanted to stay, had kicked and screamed at the hands that tried to pull her away. She fought so hard to stay that it took Nat dragging her into one of the huts and holding her cheeks in one place as she pleaded, begging Nat to leave her behind.
“I won’t be well. I won’t be me. The me that was made out here. They'll send me away. I'll be skin and bones. Please, Nat. Don’t make me.”
“None of us is going to be the same. You won’t be you, but you won’t be alone. Lottie, I promise. You’ll never be alone ever again.”
Nat is someone who keeps her promise. That's why she's here, that's why she stays here until the morning comes and sits still as nurses and doctors alike storm in demanding her to leave.
By then Lottie is awake and exercising her right as a legal adult, requesting Nat’s presence as crucial support for her recovery, and Nat tries not to smirk too obviously at the disgruntled nurse who looks like she poisons orphans for funsies.
Note to self, check any hospital roster for Sister Frances before admitting. Misty would be proud of her initiative to think ahead, Nat reckons.
Who, speaking of which, alongside other Yellowjackets, are beginning to disperse and sent home, all having families who may or may not have given up but never, never, stopped wanting their children to come home.
Lottie and Nat are the last ones left, which is absolutely to no one's surprise. One day after the last of them is escorted away by loving hands and eyes, Van knocks on Lottie’s door and tentatively asks if she can talk to Nat outside for just a minute.
Nat leaves the door cracked open where she stood so Lottie can see her the entire time.
The new medication helps to stabilize her moods, but Lottie is still the same sad, little girl they all made a mess out of in the wilderness. Regardless of whether or not there was an It, most of it was just them.
Lottie was sick, and none of them gave a damn until the need arises.
So if Nat can reassure Lottie she isn't going anywhere by a gesture as small as never walking out of Lottie’s sight, then Nat will do it in a heartbeat.
“Hey, you doing okay?”
Nat blinks, startled out of their impromptu staring contest. Sheepish, Nat waves at Lottie, who returns it with a shy one of her own, then turns to Van.
Half of her face is wrapped up in gauze, the doctors rightfully shocked that she even survived such an injury and took it upon themselves to provide the sufficient medical attention it needs.
It’ll scar, but it’ll be a reminder.
That Van, that all of them, are survivors before they are monsters.
“As okay as anyone can be.” Nat clocks the duffle bag strapped around Van’s shoulders, a medium-sized rock sinking in her stomach. “You're leaving.”
“Yeah,” Van shrugs, something akin to remorse in her eyes. “Get this, when we were gone, some reporters came to our trailer and found evidence of my mom’s alcohol abuse. They called the cops and they took her away on charges of suspected child endangerment and negligence.”
“Shit,” Nat gasps, then gasps harder. “Wait. Does that mean my—“
“Tai’s family friend doesn’t know for sure.” Tai comes from a long line of lawyers. Nat knows she’s poised to go to Colombia Law after graduation too. “But from the way they said it, her parents are ready to offer you the basement.”
No. Absolutely not.
“I can’t, I have to—“
“Be with Lottie, I know. I told her the same thing, but you know Tai.” Nat rolls her eyes, there’s no one in the world who knows Tai better than Van. “But hey, if you do end up needing a place to crash, call us, okay? I… I worry about you.”
Nat cocks her hips. “I’m not the one in between two different prescriptions for schizophrenia.”
Van shuffles in discomfort, not used to hearing Lottie’s illness being spoken about so nonchalantly, being called out so explicitly. They called it a lot of things back in the wilderness, but they’ll have to get used to this.
Nat will make sure they do, and make certain that no one, not even herself, forgets just how much wrong they all did the girl with voices in her head and a knife put in her hands by her own friends.
“Are the doctors still taking their sweet ass time?” Nat scowls. It’s more than enough for an answer. “Regardless, Lottie has you to take care of her amongst what I’m sure is an army of waitstaff already on standby at her house. But you, Nat—“
“I can take care of myself.” I’m a hunter. I provide. I protect. That’s all I’m good for.
Nat pushes herself off the wall, her body language telegraphing her displeasure in continuing the conversation down this path.
Van recognizes it, then remembers she’s supposed to be saying goodbye, and sighs.
“Sure. Just… call. Okay?”
After everything they’ve been through, Nat will put a knife in her own eye socket before she lets any of her girls out of her sight for long.
Nat nods, cool and casual and not at all borderline psycho. “Sure.”
She’s learned a thing or two from Lottie, after all.
Van leaves with a tight hug for Nat and a jolly wave at Lottie, like they’re all still in high school and Van is catching a ride with Tai and grumbling to Nat who hitch rides with Lottie about going to Applebee’s after tomorrow’s trigonometry for one of Jackie’s stupid team bonding times.
She’d do anything to rewind time and appreciate those moments for what they were.
Nat lets her grief run its course before she returns to her rightful place, where Lottie sits, stares, and welcomes her back with open arms.
“You heard everything,” Nat phrases it like an accusation, one Lottie shrugs sheepishly at. “Well? Ask me.”
“Will you come home with me?” Lottie’s voice is scratched like she’s been screaming. Nat wonders just who is coming into her dreams and scaring her, and where did their audacity come from to do so when Nat is right here.
“Okay,” Nat replies, resuming their previous position. “Let’s listen to something else.”
Lottie nods, humming as she picks up the walkman Nat poached from one of the front desk staff.
“How do you feel about Kate Bush?”
Less than a day later, Malcolm Matthews and Emilia Huang make their appearances.
Nat and Lottie are in their room— Lottie’s room, technically, but Nat made herself at home and no one could make her leave, so it's their room now— when their nurse, not the homicidal one but the kind-hearted brunette one with fluffy hair and silver eyes and a penchant for the dramatics worthy of rivaling Van Palmer’s, pops his head through the small hole in the door and knocks.
“Come in, Jamie.”
Lottie moves a chess piece, Nat winces at the abrupt turning of the tides.
Jamie walks in with amusement lacing his steps, as Nat misses her turn and grumbles at Lottie for eating one of her more important pieces.
“Good morning, ladies.”
“I’m not calling you Charlie,” Nat says, eyes intensely scanning the board.
Jesus Christ, how is Lottie this good at chess and no one knew about it? They could’ve been having a blast in the wilderness with this.
“Morning, Charlie,” Lottie plays along, a beautiful, dimpled smile unfolding at how pleased Jamie looks.
Nat rolls her eyes, but even she can’t hide her fondness. Nerds are her favorite type of people.
“Angel,” Jamie winks, coming to a stop at Lottie’s bedside. “While I’d love nothing more than to watch you decimate Nat in another round of chess,” He laughs at her raised middle finger. “Your parents are outside.”
Nat freezes first, then Lottie second. Their heads lift from the chess board, gaze intense as they lock eyes and engage in an impromptu staredown.
Jamie, who is used to this by now, peers over their game like he has any idea what's going on.
At long last, Lottie breaks first.
“I don't remember having one of those.”
Atta girl, Nat thinks with a proud smile. Jamie chokes on air, pounding his chest while spluttering.
“That's a new one,” Jamie coughs it all out, while Nat and Lottie exchange equally exasperated looks. “Well, uh, unless you were illegally adopted and had papers forged, there’s a stoic gentleman in a tux and a lovely lady in purple wanting to see you.”
“It's heliotrope,” Lottie corrects absentmindedly, eyes on Nat thus giving her the full view of fear slowly creeping into her irises.
That's more than enough to put Nat’s gear in ignition.
What good are parents if they keep their children from growing up, always at the cost of making them feel small?
“I can talk to them if you want.”
“Not alone,” Lottie immediately demands. “Not… not alone.”
“Of course,” Nat says softly, glancing at Jamie, who knows his cue and his place.
“Meet you both at the lounge in 10 minutes?”
Nat doesn't blink, hands moving without thinking. “Sure.” Then she turns to Lottie again. “Checkmate.”
The way Lottie’s big, brown eyes widen with awe with Nat as the center of her attention is so worth the incoming headache.
“You know,” Nat starts, her voice almost as quiet as the squeaks of Lottie’s wheelchair she is pushing. “For how much we know about Mr. Matthews, you don't actually talk about your mom a lot.”
Granted, all Nat knows about Malcolm is that he's stinking, filthy rich.
The team makes a point to gossip whenever Lottie does something particularly Matthews that even she doesn't realize, like paying for a whole soccer team’s stay at some Hilton branch without once blinking, but Nat never cared enough to listen.
It's just as well. She doubts they know more about him than his own daughter. Speaking from experience.
“She's a good person.” Lottie’s sigh is a telltale sign of more hidden under the ice. “But I never got the impression she cared. Compared to dad who throws money at me, she just… she looks at me like she doesn't know who I am sometimes.”
“I get that.” Lottie tips her head up, brown eyes imploring. “I know my mom loved me. We were poor, she wouldn’t have had me if she didn’t love me. All that sacrifice, all those overtime, staying with him. I don’t know. At some point, things must’ve changed.”
Probably around the time Nat grew into her features and became like him. Became him.
“She’s scared of me.”
Nat’s voice doesn’t break at the words, but her heart does at Lottie reaching back to hold her hand over the handles. Mine too.
They hold hands the rest of the way, Lottie occasionally humming the last melody of the song they just listened to. Nat would sing along if she wasn’t so nervous, even if she has a singular plan in mind and the determination needed to follow it.
Then, only needing to turn the corner to step into the visitor’s lounge, Lottie squeezes Nat’s hand.
Immediately the wheelchair skids to a stop, and Nat moves to sit in front of Lottie, knees bent and eyes met, ready to hear out whatever it is Lottie needs.
“I’m scared,” Lottie confesses, eyes watery. “What if they send me away?”
“I won’t let them.” Nat takes Lottie’s hand in hers. “I promised you, didn’t I?”
Lottie sniffles, tightening their grip. “But you’re just a girl.”
Nat chuckles, more bitter than she is sad. “We stopped being just girls nineteen months ago, princess.”